Middletown Public Housing Authority voted Tuesday night to dissolve the agency amid accusations that it tried to kick tenants out of the program and hassled its largest landlords to reduce the number of Section 8 housing units available.

In essence it was a unanimous decision voiced by council members. All are members of the housing authority.

The next step will happen July 15, when council approves the same Memorandum of Understanding and compliance agreement with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In doing so, the city agrees to turn over its 1,662 Section 8 housing vouchers to metropolitan housing authorities in Butler and Warren counties. Middletown was the only city in Ohio that voluntarily ran a housing authority. Most programs are administered through counties.

“No one who has a voucher will lose it as a result of this agreement,” City Manager Doug Adkins said. “Subsidized housing will still be available in the community for low-income residents.”

The Middletown Public Housing Agency should be shut down by September.

The agreement also bans Middletown officials from singling out or discriminating against tenants, owners, landlords or property managers who participate in the Section 8 program within the city limit in “the application of building codes, health codes, zoning requirements or matters or similar matters of local law enforcement.”

A recent Enquirer investigation found hundreds of documents that detailed the city’s plan to get rid of at least two-thirds of Middletown Public Housing Agency’s 1,662 Section 8 vouchers.

They said Section 8 clusters have created pockets of poverty in a city that is trying to revitalize. With about 50,000 residents, Middletown has 13 percent of Butler County’s population but has 56 percent of its Section 8 housing vouchers.

City officials argue that’s out of balance, even though previous councils had sought to more than triple the number of vouchers to help pay for the program’s administrative costs. They denied trying to push out low-income residents.

However, some landlords were placed under criminal investigation and charged with felony theft after subsequent audits of their Section 8 records. Dan Tracy was one of them. He was kicked out of the city program as a result, even though HUD allowed him back in. He’s suing Middletown over lost business.

“The city has been hard-nosed about it. A lawsuit could have been avoided by doing the right thing,” Tracy said. ■